Alvinne Podge Belgian Imperial Stout

Specially brewed for Belgian beer enthusiast, tour guide, and CAMRA activist Chris Pollard, AKA Podge.
24.3°P, 302 EBC, 48 EBU.

3.5

488 reviews

Moen, Belgium

Community reviews

3.4 A sweet stout with more yeast, dark fruit and sourness than is typical, though still predominantly chocolate and toasted malt.

3.8 Gusher! Black colour, brown foam. Aroma of roasted malts with notes of chocolate and dark fruit. Light sour hints. Good beer!

3.1 Yeasty, hot butterscotch and dark fruit aroma. Dark brown and mud like in appearance. All sweet and sourish in a hearty dark malt kind of way. Disappointingly thin body, really killed it for me. Amazing how a 93 overall score amounts to half that number for this style. Tough crowd.

3.6 Bottle bought some place I can’t remember. Pours murky blackish brown with a rather small fizzy beige head that quickly dissipates while leaving some trace on the glass. Smell is malty and vinous with sweet dark bread, cereal, caramel, toasted malts, moist wood, red wine, hay, sweet liquorice candy and alcohol. Taste is sweet, bitter, tiny sour, malty, fruity and vinous with roasted malts, dark roast coffee, sweet dark bread, raisins, moist wood, cereal, warming alcohol, dark chocolate and red wine. Mouthfeel is soft, creamy, tiny boozy, tiny fruity tart and near full bodied. Finish is bitter and tiny sour with roasted malts, dark roast coffee, burnt wood, red wine, alcohol and caramel. Quite good...

3.0 From a 33 cl bottle shared at home. Pours black with a massive tan head (this bottle was a gusher!). Tart dark cherry nose. Flavors of licorice and tart green apple. Bitter tart finish.

3.2 Pours dark dark brown with a tams dissipating head. This bottle was very tart even sour. Not sure if this was intentional. Lots of chocolate and dark fruits also. Interesting beer.

3.0 330 ml. bottle. BBD Sept 2014. Pours a very thick, gradually collapsing light beige head, with some lacing, over a cloudy brown (SRM 30) body.....nose is plum, light coffee, chocolate hints.....taste is dried fruit (plum, raisin), finishing with a sharp spice bitter bite, mostly dry throughout.....mouth feel light of medium, sticky, lightly astringent, alcohol burn present, carbonation adds light tingle. This bottle had a heavy yeast layer on the cap and surrounding the neck. This has obviously re-fermented in the bottle with the heavy layers of yeast. I wonder about yeast autolysis giving the off notes and perhaps explaining the fusel notes. This bottle was unfortunately a beer past its prime. BJCP 6/2/12/3/6

3.5 Aromas of roasted chocolate, char, and dried dark fruit. Hazy dark brown with a lasting, clumpy, tan head. Dry, strong, roasty, and subtly fruit, with notes of amontillado sherry. Full bodied with prickly carbonation, and finishes with a somewhat spicy, roasty finish. Very carbonated, exploded when we opened it.

3.5 Chocolate and coffee scents with roasty malts and mild alcohol slight soy scent. Thick dark brown body and foamy brown lasting head. Nutty Malty Chocolate and black coffee tastes slight grapey alc taste. Dry and creamy on the palate

3.2 This is a very sweet Belgian stout. Tried it along with a Russian Imperial and they are similar, but this one is much more sweet and creamy.

3.6 November 2010. Poured black from the bottle with a tan head. Yeasty aromas with roasted malts, chocolate and dark fruit. A bit sour on the finish.

3.4 33 cl bottle. Originally rated on 20100227. Pours murky brown, almost black color with a large head. Aroma of yeast, sourish ripe fruits, chocolate, dark roasted malts and caramel. Flavor of roasted malts, some salty licorice mild coffee notes, sour fruits and yeast. Not too fond of these sour belgian IS.

3.6 33 cl bottle @ home. Rated on 27.02.2010 Aroma is somewhat sour with soy sauce and salty licorice. Also some distant earthy notes. Flavour has salty licorice, sourness, some soy sauce and caramel. Also some fruity notes. An IS in Belgian way – not my thing.

3.5 Bottle from Blue Max. Deep mahogany pour with a huge head - somewhat of a gusher. Chocolate and sour fruit elements - pretty tasty.

3.3 $3 single at Binny’s, April 2011. Beer is more of a porter brwon, although markedly darker. Nice foamy head. Sweet candi sugar smell permeates the room as I’m typing. Taste is very sweet, but immediately a tart backwash comes in. Plenty of fizz that helps mix in the tastes. Pretty loaded with hops, even if the bottle’s 2 years old and it’s the Challenger and East Kent Goldings (that’s what the label says). Gets a little gassy just halfway through. Some dark roast malt to it. Doesn’t quite play well with its dark Kandi sugar (again, from the label). This is simply kind of… strange. Which is what makes it a Belgian beer.

3.7 Bottle. This has lots of sour flavors running through it. Thin body and complex roast malt finish. A really interesting stout that is definitely worth trying at least once.

3.8 Bottle, pours a foamy thin black. Aroma is roasty and yeasty. The flavour is lot of funk, its like a sour stout almost, it is really quite yum

4.1 Bottle from Tanakaya. Unbelievable gusher, but there was a tag to warn me. Even so, wasn’t well enough prepared. Dark chocolate brown with massive golden bubbly head that diminishes fairly quickly apart from when pouring! Aroma is chocolate, boozy sharpness, creamy sweetness, classic alvinne aroma. Not that different from Morpheus dark as far as I can remember but maybe a bit drier and with some bitterness. Taste is nice. Chocolate, bit of mars bar. Initial boozy hit of sweetness. Finish is dry and a touch bitter, dark chocolate. Very full on. Ap 34 ar 9 t 9 p 34 o 16

3.0 Bottle 33 cl from Willems - Grobbendonk (B). Black beer with red-brown refections. Dangerous cause gushing like a geyser. It remains ... 1 dl in the bottle. Acid and sour nose, roasted malt, chocolate, dates. The taste is similar, well acidic, hints of dry fruits, small fruits, choc, vanilla, coffee and wood, Alvinne yeast. Brown of Flanders malted and sweetened. Only well because out of standard.

3.2 Reddish brown of color with a beige head. An aroma of sweet liqurice, prunes, alcohol and weak notes of chocolate. A flavor of sweets and liqurice.

3.0 Bottle poured into snifter. Deep woody brown with a fizzy tan head. Aroma is terribly metallic -- copper to be exact -- with hardly any beer character. Flavor is a big improvement: brown sugar and fermented red fruits, charred bread and burnt caramel. Dry finish. Not really that good.

3.9 33 cl bottle. Black beer with a small biege head. Vanilla, licorice, sweet, chocolate, plumsand raisins aroma. Simliar flavour but a bit to much alcohol flavour...

3.7 Bottle from Etre Gourmet. Black beer with a rich lasting beige head. Malty vanilla aroma, roasted, cocoa, milky, mint, milk chocolate, licorice, candy, raisins, figs, yeasty notes, some plum. Malty flavor, roasted, yeasty, plums and figs, some raisins, chocolate, sourish, vinous, chocolate, licorice, some candy. Decent body and with a malty vinous finish that also brings chocolate, mint and yeast.

4.7 Aroma envolvent que no cansa mai. Notes de regalèsia molt elegants en boca. Gran.

2.8 Super gusher...never seen beer so eager to escape it’s confines. At least the head is full and foamy. Soft spicy chocolate malt on the nose. A bit of a sour tang too. Good, thick body. Metallic tang, chocolate, cocoa and a little cherry tart . Slightly phenolic. Not much to recommend here, except the body.

0.7 Full on gusher....salvaged just a taste and it was metallic. Nose was wet galvanized nails. Very bummed as I was really looking forward to it. Lame sauce.

4.1 Pours a thick deep umber black color with a full creamy head that laces down the glass quickly. Aromas are dark fruit, roasted malts and whiffs of funky sweet yeast. On the palate this is pretty interesting... lots of bubble lead this zippy stout through a barrage of flavors starting with rich bittersweet chocolate and roasted malts but moving into a sour tart mid palate full of sour cherry ripe plums and tart grapes that linger with the roasted chocolate notes nicely on te finish.

2.3 Aroma is loaded with roasty malt, dough. Color is black and very hazy with a full tan head that dismisses quickly. Taste is quite sweet with the presence of dried fruit. Very carbonated, lively, with medium body and oily texture. Finish is smooth and long. Just an average stout for me, I prefer a bigger body and creamy texture with much less carbonation.

3.3 Let me preface this by saying I think I got a bad bottle. It poured very fizzy and even had a coke like vanishing head. It continued bubble for several minutes. Aroma is creamy with strong vanilla and toffee. Flavor reminded me of a flat coke float with a hand full of toasted malts.

2.8 I’m disappointed after picking up the last bottle on the shelf. For the price and the fact it’s Belgium, I was expecting to be blown away. The smell and the pour are great for the anticipation, but the taste is bitter and this does not drink as smoothly as I want my stouts. On top of that, I can’t get much flavor either.